The Cold War

Being a child of the 80’s I remember my dad telling me about the four minute warning - essentially air-raid sirens would sound and a few minutes later nuclear bombs would pretty much destroy all of the UK - and yes I was pretty scared until the 90’s when the cold war was officially ‘over’

Now in my 40’s and with the advent of the Internet it’s pretty easy to learn more about the entire subject and even visit these previously top secret bunkers and systems.

Topics that interest me are Underground bunkers and communications systems.

I live in Newport Pagnell and as a kid we always knew about some ‘secret’ thing at Chichley hill, I was only told its something to do with the military - now I know it was a ROC monitoring post, one of nearly 1500 such posts which were no bigger than a 20 foot shipping container buried 10 foot underground with no running water or electricity.

 

The four minute warning would be triggered nationwide by either radar stations at RAF Fylingdales

or should of that failed, after a bomb had landed by detection at one of the 1500 ROC monitoring posts.

There is an extensive description of the entire “4 minute warning system” at this excellent site

The next three pages shows the cold war bunkers that I have visited:

RAF Holmpton

Kelvedon Hatch

Croyde Bay ROC post

The next places I want to visit are:

Hack Green

And

Drakelow Tunnels